Friday, July 20, 2012

Cambridge for friends

Last summer I was very lucky to go to Cambridge, England, and I wrote the following letter to my English-speaking friends to share my experience. Today I want to share it with all of you...

Dear
friend,

I
am having a great time doing my teacher training course at Bell
School in Cambridge. I came here on 4th
July and I'm flying back home next Saturday. There are eleven
students in my course and eleven different nationalities:
Argentinian, British (based in Saudi Arabia), Peruvian, Taiwanese,
Irish (in France for 17 years), Hungarian (in the Netherlands for 15
years), Greek, Belgian, Nepalese, Rumanian... and me. The course is
unbeatable and everybody has very interesting things to tell. The
course is intense, I am learning a lot, getting lots of new ideas to
apply, it is tiring but very enriching.

Apart
from the course there is an intense social programme too, including
visits to places of interest like an old medieval monastery whose
name I have forgotten or Southwald, on the seaside. Today I have been
to see a play by Shakespeare in the grounds of St. John's College.
Once at the college, we had to walk for about half an hour to find
the right door... it is huge! Once in, we had a picnic on the lawn,
as did most of the audience before the play started.

Cambridge
is a wonderful place, you feel it is living history. We went on a
guided tour the first week and the guide told us there are 31
colleges in Cambridge plus the University of Cambridge. Students of
all disciplines (all of them with top top grades and chosen after
careful interviewing) have most of their teaching and their
accommodation at the college, and attend common lectures at the
University. The average amount of students per teacher at College
is.... 3 to 6!!!!!!!!!! Can you imagine that?

The
river and the tall trees make Cambridge a green place, too, and as
soon as the sun shines, people picnic on the greens and sit by the
river watching swans, geese and ducks moving away from the punts
(large long canoes special to this town). Most punters take tourists
up and down the river Cam, but some also punt for pleasure, like the
Polish punter who made friends with one of my friends in this course,
a Polish girl, and took us all for punting and wine and beer drinking
in the evening... it ended at two in the morning... not a very
British time to be around, was it?

We
live on campus at Homerton College, which is also a great experience.
This is the second year the Bell School is using the College as a
teacher campus. The Great Hall,where we have breakfast and dinner, is
similar to the one in Harry Potter's films. I have rented a bike for
these two weeks, so I have freedom to come and go into town, and
explore its restaurants (I'd say British food has improved a lot
since I last lived here!) and its shops (with incredibly polite shop
assistants) and markets. Lots of people cycle in Cambridge, and one
of my favourite routes is through fields with lots of cows around
that sometimes get in your way.

I
wrote this because I wanted to share my joy with you, I hope you like
it and write back to me telling me about how you are doing!